CRUDDAS: With regards to reflecting and putting out a more rich tapestry of self-representation, I'm interested in how you use cover songs as part of your repertoire. “Moon River” was the one release this year, and they've always figured as part of your work, going way back to the Coldplay song “Strawberry Swing.” What's your method for interacting with a song people may already have an idea of—with other people's music?

OCEAN: Nowadays, I have to live with the song for a bit and I have to see if it's worthwhile to interpret it first. To see what I can do with it, where I can insert my voice. In the past, I would just like a song and I wouldn't think about it as seriously as when I do “Close to You” or “Moon River” or “At Your Best…” It's much more deliberate than when I was just focused on the rap mixtape approach of taking a beat or flow, swapping the lyrics and performing it. The performance almost being the stream-of-consciousness, in-the-moment thing, whereas now I would much prefer having the song be with me for more time before I have to record it.

VEGYN: Are these records you keep coming back to?

OCEAN: Certainly for Aaliyah's “At Your Best…,” I was at a party and it came on, and I had to sing it. And I didn't connect it to ATL, with T.I. and Lauren London. I watched that movie a lot for some reason when I was 18 and first moved to L.A. I think because it reminded me of home, and that song played when T.I. had the El Camino and first kissed New New, but I didn't connect it when I was at that party years later that it was something from nostalgia. I started living with it, thinking about how I could do it justice.

With “Close to You,” it was a similar thing, only without the nostalgia. I was living in a hotel, and I remember listening to it and being really nailed to the floor by Stevie Wonder's interpretation of it. That version moved into my favorite-songs-of-all-time list, right there with Prince's “When You Were Mine.” I don't know what creates that feeling of “I have to sing this song.”

With “Moon River,” though, that was more random. Someone asked me to sing it, and that was the only reason I listened to it. People ask me to do a lot of things I don't do laughs, but when I listened to it, it was something that I wanted to do because I thought the song was small and beautiful and neat. It's the “ocean in the drop” idea, all these feelings inside this small thing. Living with it, listening to the many versions, thinking about who I would work on it with and what I would go for in interpreting it. Of the covers I've done, “At Your Best…” and “Moon River” are my favorites.

From tour, by the time it came around to playing “Close to You” live, I had even more time with it: There are songs you find your way through after you've played it a few times. Sometimes you lose something after being familiar with it, something in your voice is different. Being in front of an audience and that still being new and scary to me, the adrenaline and everything mixed together didn't make it feel like this stale thing I'd done a million times. It felt charged with a special energy.

Song yet?

No

Iight I'll leave then damn.

Listened yet?

No

and ban op

This is f***ing stupid

this scam artist gonna sell this song on discogs to some reddit nerd and they're gonna play it and its gonna be a bunch of fart sounds

change title to "People crying over not having a Frank Ocean song that doesn't exist"

bamboozled again

y'all bought this s***

Even that is a contested election and I say that as your campaign manager

Glad I dont get hyped up over this s*** no more. 2015/6 i was in these threads constantly but I learned my lesson

when its out, its out

so it was a fake vinyl or what ?

i mean it's technically not possible that only guy got it delivered

Its otw

Got an email about my In My Room & Little Demon Vinyl Shipping soon, they gave me a tracking number but it seems the package hasn't left the storage facility yet

morn

Manifesting us getting someone sent little demon vinyl by accident

What bugged me about this the whole time is that "These Days" just used the Dear April colors yellow and red

Every single had different colors, that was the whole gimmick of those fonts, so I think that's unlikely. Plus when you zoom in it seems like there's actually only yellow with red around it, though every font in fact had three colors (plus different colored borders)...